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Of progress or improvement.

HE who is making progress, having learned from philosophers that desire means the desire of good things, and
aversion means aversion from bad things; having learned
too that happiness1 and tranquillity are not attainable by
man otherwise than by not failing to obtain what he desires,
and not falling into that which he would avoid; such a
man takes from himself desire altogether and defers it,2
but he employs his aversion only on things which are dependent on his will. For if he attempts to avoid anything
independent of his will, he knows that sometimes he will
fall in with something which he wishes to avoid, and he
will be unhappy. Now if virtue promises good fortune
and tranquillity and happiness, certainly also the progress
towards virtue is progress towards each of these things.
For it is always true that to whatever point the perfecting
of anything leads us, progress is an approach towards this
point.

How then do we admit that virtue is such as I have
said, and yet seek progress in other things and make a display of it? What is the product of virtue? Tranquillity.
Who then makes improvement? Is it he who has read
many books of Chrysippus?3 But does virtue consist in
having understood Chrysippus? If this is so, progress is
clearly nothing else than knowing a great deal of Chrysippus. But now we admit that virtue produces one
thing, and we declare that approaching near to it is
another thing, namely, progress or improvement. Such a
person, says one, is already able to read Chrysippus by
himself. Indeed, sir, you are making great progress.
What kind of progress? But why do you mock the man?
Why do you draw him away from the perception of his
own misfortunes? Will you not show him the effect of
virtue that he may learn where to look for improvement?
Seek it there, wretch, where your work lies. And where
is your work? In desire and in aversion, that you may
not be disappointed in your desire, and that you may not
fall into that which you would avoid; in your pursuit and
avoiding, that you commit no error; in assent and suspension of assent, that you be not deceived. The first
things, and the most necessary, are those which I have
named.4 But if with trembling and lamentation you
seek not to fall into that which you avoid, tell me how
you are improving.

Do you then show me your improvement in these
things? If I were talking to an athlete, I should say,
Show me your shoulders; and then he might say,
Here are my Halteres. You and your Halteres5look to
that. I should reply, I wish to see the effect of the
Halteres. So, when you say: Take the treatise on the
active powers (ὁρμή), and see how I have studied it. I
reply, Slave, I am not inquiring about this, but how you
exercise pursuit and avoidance, desire and aversion, how
you design and purpose and prepare yourself, whether
conformably to nature or not. If conformably, give me
evidence of it, and I will say that you are making progress: but if not conformably, be gone, and not only
expound your books, but write such books yourself; and
what will you gain by it? Do you not know that the
whole book costs only five denarii? Does then the expounder seem to be worth more than five denarii? Never
then look for the matter itself in one place, and progress
towards it in another.

Where then is progress? If any of you, withdrawing
himself from externals, turns to his own will (προαίρεσις）
to exercise it and to improve it by labour, so as to make it
conformable to nature, elevated, free, unrestrained, unimpeded, faithful, modest; and if he has learned that he
who desires or avoids the things which are not in his
power can neither be faithful nor free, but of necessity he
must change with them and be tossed abort with them as
in a tempest,6 and of necessity must subject himself to
others who have the power to procure or prevent what
he desires or would avoid; finally, when he rises in the
morning, if he observes and keeps these rules, bathes as a
man of fidelity, eats as a modest man; in like manner, if
in every matter that occurs he works out his chief principles τὰπροηγούμενα) as the runner does with reference to
running, and the trainer of the voice with reference to the
voice—this is the man who truly makes progress, and this
is the man who has not travelled in vain. But if he has
strained his efforts to the practice of reading books, and
labours only at this, and has travelled for this, I tell him
to return home immediately, and not to neglect his affairs
there; for this for which he has travelled is nothing. But
the other thing is something, to study how a man can
rid his life of lamentation and groaning, and saying, Woe
to me, and wretched that I am, and to rid it also of misfortune and disappointment, and to learn what death is,
and exile, and prison, and poison, that he may be able to
say when he is in fetters, Dear Crito,7 if it is the will of the
gods that it be so, let it be so; and not to say, Wretched
am I, an old man; have I kept my grey hairs for this?
Who is it that speaks thus? Do you think that I shall
name some man of no repute and of low condition? Does
not Priam say this? Does not Oedipus say this? Nay,
all kings say it!8 For what else is tragedy than the perturbations (πάθη) of men who value externals exhibited in
this kind of poetry? But if a man must learn by fiction
that no external things which are independent of the will
concern us, for my part I should like this fiction, by the
aid of which I should live happily and undisturbed. But
you must consider for yourselves what you wish.

What then does Chrysippus teach us? The reply is,
to know that these things are not false, from which happiness comes and tranquillity arises. Take my books, and
you will learn how true and conformable to nature are the
things which make me free from perturbations. O great
good fortune! 0 the great benefactor who points out the
way! To Triptolemus all men have erected9temples and
altars, because he gave us food by cultivation; but to him
who discovered truth and brought it to light and communicated it to all, not the truth which shows us how to live,
but how to live well, who of you for this reason has built
an altar, or a temple, or has dedicated a statue, or who worships God for this? Because the gods have given the
vine, or wheat, we sacrifice to them: but because they have
produced in the human mind that fruit by which they designed to show us the truth which relates to happiness,
shall we not thank God for this?

3 Diogenes Laertius (Chrysippus, lib. vii.) states that Chrysippus
wrote seven hundred and five books, or treatises, or whatever the
word συγγράμματα means. He was born at Soli, in Cilicia, or at
Tarsus, in B. C. 280, as it is reckoned, and on going to Athens he
became a pupil of the Stoic Cleanthes.

5 Halteres are gymnastic instruments (Galen. i. De Sanitate
tuenda; Martial, xiv. 49; Juvenal, vi. 420, and the Scholiast. Upton).
Halteres is a Greek word, literally “leapers.” They are said to have
been masses of lead, used for exercise and in making jumps. The
effect of such weights in taking a jump is well known to boys who
have used them. A couple of bricks will serve the purpose, Martial
says (xiv. 49):—
“Quid pereunt stulto fortes haltere lacerti?
Exercet melius vinea fossa viros.”

Juvenal (vi. 421) writes of a woman who uses dumb-bells till she
sweats, and is then rubbed dry by a man,

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